


Break the Surface

by princessofmind



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, i obviously have a gill fingering fetish, kink meme fill, seadweller anatomy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:58:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with his eyelids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill that I'd mostly abandoned. Chalk it up to nerves about trying to write a xenobiology sex scene, but the combination of a well-timed ask and a wave of inspiration means that this is finally finished. You can find the original fill [here](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/5183.html?thread=3031359#t3031359). A special thanks to the [nyehrii2ol](http://nyehrii2ol.tumblr.com/) who gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get this story finished.

It started with his eyelids.

Which sounds really fucking pathetic, now that you think about it, but you're not in the habit of lying to yourself about things, so why start now? Usually when he and Feferi start arguing, you're sequestered happily on your computer and you have enough experience tuning Karkat out, so their voices are little more than a soft hum with a treble accompaniment. But this time, you'd just been pulled out of your chair and in to the horn pile when he approached, so you couldn't do much else besides sit (recline, more like) and listen.

Feferi doesn't pull her punches, something you think she'd grown tired of having to do while she was his moirail, so the conversations usually don't last long. She's saying something, you don't really care what, and you can tell by the crumbling look on his face that the statement is hitting it's mark. As he seems to pull back in on himself, you see something slide over his eyes, almost like a film, and his dark gaze is unfocused, almost like he's looking through frosted glass.

"What'd you do to your eyeth?"

They both stop talking, and you don't really care that you interrupted them (it's always the same argument anyways), especially when his eyes don't clear when his focus is redirected. Feferi's brow wrinkles for a moment, like you just declared there was a flying woofbeast tap dancing on her head, but then her eyes light up and she laughs.

"Oh, he's done that since he was a wriggler," she says, waving a hand dismissively, and his cheeks flush angry purple. "I guess it's a "I can't see you, you can't see me" type thing. Doesn't really work, but I guess it makes him feel better or it wouldn't have become a habit."

"Okay," and honestly, you couldn't care less, because you see the glaze disappear, and you're fascinated. "Thtill have no clue what it ith."

"They're eyelids," he snaps, and you see him nictate, the glaze first, then his outer eyelids. "Our eyes aren't that different from yours, and the salt water would leave us half blind if we didn't have a way to protect ourselves. Cod, Fef."

You don't really know what Feferi has to do with your ignorance of seadweller anatomy, but you just want to get him to blink at you again, because seeing those dual lids moving in sync, sliding over his eyes, is one of the most alluring things you've ever seen. And he's just blinking at you.

When you're laying in the pile afterwords, Feferi blinks her second lids at you, letting you see the film up close, but she just giggles and peers right back at you. You didn't think Eridan was trying to play coy, but something about his flushed cheeks and narrowed eyes made it just that more…intriguing.

So it doesn't really come as any surprise when a few days later, you're trying to figure out a way to get away from Feferi to track down the mysterious and yet-unvisited tank room.


	2. Two

The door is heavy, not automatic like a lot of the ones on the ship are. It would be easy to force open with your psionics, but the cold metal feels good against your sweaty palms. Feferi had just smiled knowingly as you slipped out of the computer room, sitting primly next to Nepeta, trying not to look like she was watching you leave, but you could feel her almost amused gaze on your back as you left. Thankfully, the slightly yellow flush staining the back of your neck is gone by the time you find the elusive room.

It's located near the outside of the far side the ship, a lot further away than you thought it would be. As you push your shoulder against the door, a sliver of soft blue light opens, illuminating the room softly, reminding you almost of a fish tank (which is only appropriate you think). It feels cool inside, and the glow is relaxing, emanating from the tanks themselves.

You're not entirely sure what they were made for in the first place, but there are several openings, large and disappearing in to the floor. There are smaller tubes, still glass you think, that branch from the three large tanks that you can see, some going up in to the ceiling, some twisting around to lead out through the back walls. The floor around the tanks is slightly damp, especially near the metal ladder you can see leading up inside.

He's floating, almost at the bottom of the largest tank you can see, laying on his back as if asleep. There's no current, so he's not moving at all, and you're worried for a moment that he's dead. But don't dead fish float? And speaking of which, don't trolls float? You've not spent a lot of time in the water yourselves, but you're pretty sure that your species is buoyant, no matter how heavy you may be.

As you approach, footfalls echoing wetly against the tiles, you can see that his eyes are closed, his chest not rising and falling with breath, which makes sense since his lungs don't function under the water. His gills, four flits on either side of his torso, seem to flutter, despite there being no current. The gills themselves are nothing spectacular, looking nearly like they could just be dark shadows on his ribs.

But the filaments are stunning. You know his blood color, see it in his flushed face and on his shirts, but this is the first time you've really seen just how rich it is. They look soft, almost like bunched silk, and the tips of your fingers itch to tickle the ridges. His gills are in the place where the small puckers on your torso from where your grub legs used to be, and you shouldn't be surprised that he didn't look exactly like you as a child, either.

His toes are webbed, just like Feferi's, but unlike her, he has small fins on his calves. They're barely there, and you wonder if maybe they're growing in to the muscles of his legs as he grows up, but they look an awful lot like his aural fins, just more curved and a lot smaller. The left one is torn, the skin having grown back and scarred over pale lilac, a startling contrast to the royal purple of his gills.

You've been edging closer to the tank, tentatively, as if he were awake to fuss at you for getting too close. With only the wall of glass separating you, you can see how his eyelashes rest against his cheeks, the soft glow from the tank making them look much longer than you figure they really are.

It occurs to you that you've never seen him relaxed before, or so exposed. He's always wrapped up in so many layers, hiding his face behind his scarf and his glasses, looking so small and angry at everyone and everything. He's hurt (he deserved it too) but he pretends like he isn't, and something about it tugs on your heartstrings in a way you're loathe to admit.

He's beautiful, under the thick black sweaters and silly striped pants. He's just as skinny as you thought he would be, but there's muscle there, particularly on his arms and calves, built from days pushing through the water. He's made for speed, not strength, and although he has to rely on heavy firearms on the surface, you have no doubt that he could easily best even Equius with just his bare hands if he could get him in the water.

His lips part, eyes flickering behind closed lids, and you fly back out through the cracked door, leaning against it, your damp shoes sliding as it closes against your slight weight. The back of your neck is hot, and your heart is thumping uncomfortably in your chest.

This isn't good.


	3. Three

"Not that I don't find it flatterin' as hell, but a guy does get a little creeped out wwhen people are wwatchin' him sleep."

Eridan is always loud, either angry or smug, projecting his voice so everyone is aware of his business. He likes to show off, be the center of attention, so you're surprised when he actually stands next to your chair to speak, not shout across the room as he usually does. His voice is deeper when he isn't yelling, and it makes your eyebrows draw down. There's a little gravel there, rumbling in his chest, but still undeniably pleasant.

You wonder if he sings.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," you retort, fingers dancing across the keyboard, although you've retyped the same line of code about ten times now. You're far less interested in your program than you are the way he looks so strikingly different, especially now, with his hair gelled back and his glasses a wall to separate him from the rest of the world.

He picks at the hem of his sweater, a scowl making his expression turn stormy. "Look, I ain't tryin' to start somefin with you, because you haven't attacked me or anything, I just…" And here he huffs, his bottom lip sticking out just a bit, and you snort in barely contained amusement.

You push away from the computer enough to turn and face him, which makes him take an unconscious step back. You raise an eyebrow, and he just flushes angrily, and you see those jelly-thin lids sliding back and forth, as if he can't decide if he feels threatened or not. "Why do you wear so many layerth?"

That's clearly not the question he's expecting, because his reaction is rather muted, and from what you know of him, that usually means he doesn't fully comprehend what's going on, and it makes the corner of your lips pull up, just barely, but it's enough for him to catch. The corners of his lips turn up just a bit in mimic, and you're embarrassed how it makes your pulse thrum in your ears.

"Your thweater looks thoft enough, but it doethn't irritate your gillth?"

He blinks owlishly, and those stupid glasses of his have the (admittedly nice) affect of making his eyes look even bigger. "I…" He crosses his arms, almost looking self-conscious, his fingers splayed over where you know his gills lie hidden from sight, and you don't really need him to answer you any more.

Eridan likes to pretend like he stands out, with his cape and brightly striped pants. But his efforts to be different are really just because he wants so badly to fit in, to be part of their little group. Unlike Feferi, who embraces her biological differences, wiggling her aural fins and nictating her double lids for anyone who asks, Eridan is uneasy, because he looks even more different than she does.

Because, really, how different is too different? His muscles, lithe and supple as they are, are structurally different from the others, more obviously so than the faint differences you can barely make out beneath Feferi's soft curves. He hides his weaknesses, the gills that you know have to be sensitive and the already scarred fin on his leg, and you wonder how much is self-preservation and how much is self-consciousness.

You turn back to your computer, biting the inside of your cheek. "You don't have anything to worry about."

There's silence, and you start to wonder if maybe he left, your low-key compliment not enough to stroke his ego, but then his lips, dry and cool and soft, brush the shell of your ear, and he whispers _thank you_.


	4. Four

You never really put much thought in to how form-fitting your jeans were until you had the hems hiked up to your knees, the cool water running between your toes and you idly move your feet back and forth. It feels like the circulation is being cut off a little bit, but if you pulled them down even a centimeter, you'd end up with soaked pants and that's not exactly high on your to-do list.

He's looking at your toes in all their free-wiggling wonder, unhindered by the tight webbing that makes Feferi despise wearing shoes of any sort. His eyes are are huge, filmy, grey-purple orbs, and you kind of want to steal his glasses because he's just a punch to the gut when he doesn't have them on. In the water, he looks effortless, his hair wild and ungelled, his layers in a neatly folded pile near the ladder. The only thing he keeps is his rings, glittering softly in the blue light.

He's not floating, just hanging there, barely out of reach, and even if you stretch you couldn't poke him in the face with your big toe. It's something that's niggled at the back of your brain since you first saw him in the tanks, sleeping just above the bottom, not having to move or work to keep himself submerged, just like he is now. 

You beckon, and his head breaks the water as he swims closer, his rings pressing in to your skin as his hands wrap around your ankles. You lift him a little, your legs more than strong enough to handle his buoyant form, and a fond smile plays across his lips as he bobs at your mercy.

"How do you thtay under water like that? Like, not floating up to the thurfath all the time."

He tries to look put out, like he did the first time you ascended the ladder and disturbed him from his "beauty slumber", but you can see how the attention to detail makes his face light up and eases some of the self-consciousness you know he fights to keep at bay. "Sea dwwellers havve these things called swwim bladders-"

"That'th dithguthting-"

He smacks your calf none too gently, his pointed teeth showing as he glowers. "That's just wwhat they're called, cod, wwhat are you, three? I'vve got twwo of 'em, and they're filled wwith gas that helps me control my buoyancy. But since I function outta the wwater and evveryfin, I have to gulp air 'afore I can use it."

"That'th thtill kind of groth," you say, pulling your feet out from under him to press against the glass under your knees, beckoning him closer. He obliges, wet hands on your knees as he pulls himself up, his chest finally moving as his torso emerges from the water. "So where ith it?"

He looks indignant, but your hands are already pressing his abdomen, up under his ribs where most of the squishy stuff is usually found. "It's not something you can just grab, Sol, Jegus fuck-" but he cuts himself off with a shriek when your fingers run under his ribs up towards his sternum, making him jerk to the side.

It totally goes against your instincts not to get your clothes wet, but you've already got your fingers practically hooked under his ribs, and you get the other around his torso fast enough to haul him closer, fingers dancing over the spot you stumbled across. His laughter echoes off the tiled floors, and it's like trying to hold on to…well, a fish, slivering and squirming, and it isn't long before you're yanked from your perch and in to the tank.

He's still trying to catch your hands, but his focus seems to have changed from pushing you away to getting your arms pinned. Distantly, you think this may be linked to the fact that he probably doesn't know whether or not you can swim, and you're taken aback enough that he manages to get his arms around you, skin sliding against yours, as his chest heaves in an attempt to get back the breath you stole from him.

"I couldn't find it,"

Your deadpan makes him smile as he knocks his forehead against yours, shifting your glasses but you couldn't care less. "Of course you couldn't fucking find it," he says, and you're pretty sure that's affection in his voice and in his eyes.

His forehead rests against yours, nose brushing the bridge of your glasses, and you wonder if you're ever going to get used to seeing him not breathe. The initial struggle worn off, he's still, the only movement coming from his legs, easily keeping you both afloat. His hair is flopping in his face, and you'd be tempted to reach up and smooth it back if not for the fact that you'd have to dislodge his arms from around you. Instead, you let your breath ghost across his lips, feeling the warmth from his body fight off the chill of the water. And slowly, ever so slowly, he moves closer, as if you could (as if you _would_ ) push him away, and it seems only fitting that the first time you kiss him you feel completely weightless.


	5. Five

Even out of the water, there's a thin, lithe grace about him when he's not bogged down with layer upon layer of clothing. He's thin, almost frighteningly so, but his skin is thicker, holds warmth better than yours (for deep sea diving, he says one day when you run your nails appraisingly over his biceps) and he doesn't have much of an appetite this far from the sea. His weight is slight, back pressed against your chest as you keep his legs spread with your knees between his thighs, easily able to overpower the twitching that threatens to close him off from you.

His head lolls back against your shoulder, breath hot against your neck, and when he jerks against your fingertips, you can feel the barest brush of his lips against your skin. One hand is tangled in your shirt, the other clutches at your forearm as your touches dance lower and lower. His entire body is flushed, burning hot even through your clothes, and it's debatable if that's attributed more to embarrassment than desire.

Because as strange as it may be to you now, you know that he's never entertained the thought of being in this position. For all his lewd remarks and propositioning, he's self-conscious, all sharp angles and desperate noises in the back of his throat, gangly and unsure like some frightened animal. He trusts you, evidenced in the fact that he let you coax him out of the tank and back to your room, your bed, but despite that he still fears rejection.

You trace your fingertips across his gills (nails filed down to soft curves just for this occasion), feeling the catch of his breath and the jerk of hips as your other hand rubs circles on the inside of his thigh, trying to ease the tension you feel there. Every time you drift closer to his hips, he squirms away, and so you keep your touches low, dropping your mouth to the pulse hammering away in his neck as the dry-slick filaments shudder under your ministrations. Your bulge is pressing uncomfortably against the seam of your jeans, and when he presses back against you, you moan low in your throat, fighting the instinct to muffle your voice to make sure he knows how this feels for you too.

The more sounds you make, spoken in broken, desperate tones while you mouth at his jawline, the more his legs fall apart of his own accord, until he's open to you completely, only whimpering in pleasure as your hand climbs higher. Unlike the whole mess of genitalia you have (boney protective protrusion and bulge and nook) there's only smoothness and a small slit, and when you rub your fingers up and down either side, he keens, breathing starting to become desperate.

He's shaking against you, fingers digging in to your forearm so tightly that you can feel blood welling up under his nails, but the pain doesn't register past the pleasure that's making everything except Eridan a senseless haze. You run the tip of your index finger up the slit, just barely pressing in, and he jerks so hard he'd probably fall off the bed if you didn't have such a firm grip on him. You feel something pressing back against your finger, curling around it, and Eridan's breathing has picked up to the point he sounds almost panicked, his exhales almost sobs.

There's more of them, smaller and shorter than the single bulge you posses, but several times more sensitive. ("We can't havve our partners floatin' away durin' intercourse or somefin," was all he would say on the matter when pressed.) They curl around your fingers tightly, and the slick squeezing makes you throb inside your pants, grinding up against him even as you press the heel of your palm firmly against his pelvis. His heels dig in to the mattress, pushing desperately up against you, and it takes a surprising amount of strength to keep him in place. He's babbling, breathy and desperate, broken pleas and curses and endearments until he's practically incoherent.

He's close, you can feel it in the way he clenches around your fingers, so you bite at the fin flattened against the side of his head, running your tongue across the delicate webbing. "Come on," you groan, wiggling your fingers, and he comes with what probably would have been a scream if his voice wasn't already wrecked, but instead comes out as a desperate whine. The image of your bulge being where your hand is, wrapped in that pulsing wetness, sends you over the edge as well, your hips rocking against his ass while you burry your face against his shoulder.

"Fuck," he murmurs, nosing your hair and you think you can feel a smile against the curve of your ear. He's damp with sweat, and sounds almost pained when you walk your fingers back up his gills after his body releases your hand. "Stop, 'm too sensitive."

You scoot down on the bed, ignoring the mess on the sheets and inside your pants in favor of pulling him tight against you, chest to chest this time. His face and neck and tips of his fins are still flushed, but the nervousness is gone, replaced with a relaxed contentedness that makes your heart throb in a way that's only half unpleasant. He dozes off, one leg thrown over your hips while his hands fist the back of your shirt, and you don't even complain about the weird whistling noise his exposed gills make when he falls asleep above water.


	6. Six

She smells of warm sand and crashing waves as she leans against your shoulder, following your gaze to the much less sullen troll sitting across the computer room from you. His sweater has been swapped out in favor of a lighter, more comfortable cotton blend, and he nictates at you across the kitchen even when Nepeta's in there to squeal about how adorable his flirting is. He still bitches and moans about everything under the sun, still wears that silly scarf around his neck, but calms easily when you slip your hand up the back of his shirt, resting comfortably against the small of his back while he talks shop with Karkat.

"Guess what?" Feferi says, nudging your knee with hers. "We wiggle our fins at the people we love."

Eridan meets your gaze, and although his eyes are hidden behind his obnoxiously thick glasses, you can still barely see the film slide across violet irises as his lips twist in an endearing combination of a smile and a scowl. You grin toothily back, bringing the scowl out in full form, but contrary to his expression, his face fins flare and wiggle slightly, the way they do when you're floating together in the tank with his hair plastered to his skull and his laughter echoes loudly off the walls, or when you're laying in bed and he traces words on your stomach and you try to guess them, purposefully wrong every time just because he huffs and tickles you as if to say "how do I even begin to put up with your stupidity".

"I know."

And you wiggle your ears back.


End file.
